Contents

Chapter #242 of Libertine's Guide to Surviving the Harry Potter Fandom without spontaneously combusting in an embarrassing way. is a 2004 essay by Libertine/luciusmalfoy.

The Essay

Chapter #242, How to Deal with Fandom Wank

Please understand from the beginning that 40% of Fandom wank is composed of people who find the dramatics of fandom humorous and fun to mock. 20% is composed of gormless fandom lurkers who think nothing of trawling through eight months of someone's livejournal to find a offhand incontextual comment that validates their point. The remaining 40% is composed of strange misshapen gnomes who wish to either a)Get revenge on individual people, b)Get revenge on a heartless fandom world that has rejected them, and c)Get 'popular' there, because they can't anywhere else.

You can tell the difference between these two factions by comparing their self-mating calls.

Humour!Wankers:

"Check out the melodrama!"

"Nothing like a Christian-fanatic/BNFwar/etc to make the fandom wheels grind."

"HAHA, great wank! The dysfunction just keeps pouring in."

Lurker!Wankers:

"I found this particular gem after spending twelve hours rooting through someone's livejournal archive. As you can see from this sample, removed from its context and butchered into a barely comprehendable paraphrase, the person we're wanking is obviously an insane hypocrite with too much time on their hands. Right, guys?"

"Of course I don't hate her. No, I don't have an eye twitch. What knife?"

"I eat my own poo."

You will have little to fear from the latter group. Due to FW policy, most misshapen gnomes will soon end up as fodder for the squalling wanker babes-in-arms. The best way to deal with them is to throw in some rational analysis of the discussion. I have it on good authority that it makes their heads explode.

Lurker!Wankers are less easily disposed of, because they can and will dedicate twenty four hours of every day to scrounging up dirt from your past livejournal entries. However, these types can be dealt with by going back and editing your livejournal posts to correspond with their livejournals. Possible examples are as follows:

Today I watched from behind a hedge as (lurker!wanker did the things described in their livejournal post). Then I touched myself and fondled their pet dog.

In my crystal ball I saw bad things in lurker!wanker's future, including (this, this and this episode from later posts).

I just fucked lurker!wankers significant other. I hope they won't read back through my livejournal entries in a fit of fandom_wank hysteria and discover our shameful secret.

Humor!Wankers are the best fandom_wankers. These are the ones who are in some way responsible for bullying the lamer members of the fandom out. They stand up against Christian flamers and random trolls, and tend to make fun of such things as ship wars and plebely sarcasm. An unfortunate minority of humor!wankers are prone self-righteousness and will fly into a fit of pique at the mere suggestion they are full of crap. At this point they often transform into lurker!wankers, and the cycle of stalking renews.

However, humor!wankers are easily calmed down if you make it clear to them you don't take their ranting seriously. It's all fun and games, right? No harm done, and you can have a good cackle at yourself. Or even turn things around and have a cackle at them and their misshapen gnomes.

NB: This does not work if you are a BNF, know a BNF or have once been mistaken for a BNF in the shopping mall. The sight of a BNF in turmoil is like a dying deer to a hyena. Like the misshapen gnomes, humor!wankers are affected by the fangirl-created 'glamour' and 'unattainability' of the BNFS. They will gather around your flailing corpse and masturbate wildly over your poor little BNF head until they exhaust their reserves of snappy comebacks and witty banter.

How to have fun with fandom_wank

1. Don't take it seriously.

2. Play the Fandom Wank drinking game. Look through the lists of comments. Every time you see a point repeated by someone else but with extra enthusiasm (OMFG DID THEY REALLY SAY THAT?!) or feigned apathy (Oh, like I'm not surprised. *sips red wine and flicks through newspaper* That wank was so last month.), have a swig of vodka. You will be completely blotto by the time you read to the end.

3. Fish for flames and further wankdom with posts like this.

4. Get a group of friends together and overwhelm them with wank until it causes their heads to explode. (Great fun on boring wank weeks.)

6. Fandom Wank is a strange creature, in that it is almost completely biologically incapable of laughing at itself. While it reserves the right to pick fun of anyone else, woe betide those who have a laugh at them. Play a joke on them and you'll get any of these responses:

"Oh YEAH, real mature."

"I KNEW that's what was going on. So boring. *reads newspaper and pours more wine* Did I mention this was so last month?"
"Time to check this person's livejournal! We'll dig up old wank on them for revenge!"

"Um, new topic please."

7. Adopt a joke they've made at your expense. Be prepared to witness countless reminders that the joke's on you, and reams of comments dedicated to discussing how silly it is that someone who got wanked is actively perpetuating it because they find FW amusing and/or useful. The amount of smug lameness that crops up in these posts ("*snicker* I wonder if they understand the joke's on them?") rivals that found in the linux section of a computer expo.

8. Respond to every one of their comments with *THWACK* anonymously, regardless of content. Alternately, start fights with yourself anonymously.

9. Become a member and read it.

End Note

As a general rule, being wanked by fandom_wank will usually result in three things for you:

a) Exposure for your fics, livejournal, website, or cause.

b) An influx of new livejournal friends.

c) An opportunity to put to good use all those cool swearwords you made up in your spare time (Like 'crotchfruit').

And will result in three things for fandom_wank:

a) A day of snickering at other people.

b) A day of getting shouted at by other people.

c) An opportunity to put to good use all those cool and witty demurs they made up in their spare time. (Like 'Clearly this author lacks a chromosome, HAHAH.')

If I've lost you at any point, let me explain: this post isn't a guide to 'beating' fandom_wank, if only because that's entirely too much masturbation innuendo. It's a guide to dealing with it. And to deal with it, all you have to do is have the guts to still be around the next morning. And if the posts piss you off, just remember that 40% of your critics' natural habitat is under bridges awaiting the return of Billy Goats Gruff, and 20% are probably outside right now, rooting through your garbage.

NEXT WEEK on LIBERTINE'S TALKBACK PLEBE RADIO, see the next chapter of Libertine's Guide to Surviving the Harry Potter Fandom without spontaneously combusting in an embarrassing way, Chapter #243, "Overcoming The Urge to Slash Characters Only Mentioned Once in the Book and That Might Just Have Been a Missprint in Your Copy."

-Libertine.

Some Comments

I love your breakdown of the various types of members of fandom wank, but I will issue a few caveats.

a) The Humour!Wankers are almost all long-timers. They stick around for months or years a time. The trolls and scary stalker types tend to be one-time deals. So I think you're overestimating the latter's importance to Fandom Wank. As far as Fandom Wank goes, the latter type are just more idiots to be mocked.

b) Believe it or not, Fandom Wank is made up of many different people w/ many different beliefs and ideas. There are some people on Fandom Wank who can't accept when FWAnk is wanky itself. But there are other people who are willing and ready to admit when that happens. Thus, it's hardly fair to say Fandom Wank is always incapable of knowing when it is in the wrong.

And thanks for illustrating my long-held contention that going on Fandom Wank really is a positive thing for those who fall into it. Now maybe they'll stop bitching as soon as they end up there.

[sparklychibli]:

In all seriousness, was this ever written? Because I really, really need it.

But that's not to say that "Blaise Zavini" is a misprint! Because I swear he exists and in book twelve he will be Anthony Goldstein's lover, dammit! You can tell because of the way they were mentioned within three books of each other! And also because of the fifty-eight-chapter epic I wrote about their great love which can be found on Schnoogle and my LJ and on various communities that have nothing to do with Harry Potter (without an LJ-cut, of course, because Blaise and Anthony have no wish to hide their love) and in comments to people I don't know and on my desktop and on billboards on highways all over this country and seven more! And because their names both contain the letter "i"! It is clearly canon.